


Turning Point

by SylvanWitch



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Apologies, Coming Out, Declarations Of Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-18 12:57:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21761254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylvanWitch/pseuds/SylvanWitch
Summary: Sorry isn't simple when one of you is Rodney McKay and the other one is a dick.
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Comments: 8
Kudos: 84





	Turning Point

**Author's Note:**

> For my prompt bingo card: "Go away!"

“Go away!”

The voice was muffled from behind the heavy Lantean door, but neither the tone nor the words could be mistaken.

John sighed, propped his back against the wall opposite the door, and slid down it, draping his wrists over his knees and putting his head back to look up at the ceiling, prepared to wait Rodney out.

“I said I was sorry, Rodney,” John said, trying the cajoling note that had worked sometimes in the past with his lover.

“And I said, ‘Go away!’” Rodney repeated.

“Can’t do that, Rodney,” John noted, letting a little of the weariness he was feeling seep into his voice. 

It had been a long week on Atlantis. There’d been a generator failure, which had resulted in one of the lower sections being flooded, and then one of the newbies accidentally got himself suspended in indefinite stasis. Caldwell had been on Sheppard’s ass in staff meetings for irritating, minor bullshit.

And now this.

“You know I didn’t mean it,” John tried, knowing it was lame but fresh out of other options.

“Intention doesn’t equal consequence,” Rodney shot back.

And the thing of it was, of course, that Rodney was right. It didn’t matter that John hadn’t intended for Rodney to end up feeling like a distant, second best to John’s duties on Atlantis. It didn’t matter that John loved him so much it scared him, which is what motivated him sometimes to let those duties take precedence.

What mattered was that Rodney had needed John, and John hadn’t been there for him.

“I’m sorry,” John said.

Silence from beyond the lab door.

Two biologists wandered by, giving John curious looks, one leaning in toward the other as they passed, both of them giggling and shooting him glances over their shoulders.

_Great, more grist for the gossip mill._

“Rodney, people are starting to get suspicious about me sitting out here,” he tried, but he knew almost at once that it was the wrong tack to take, a sense confirmed by Rodney’s petulant, “Oh, well, we wouldn’t want anyone questioning the great Colonel Sheppard, now would we? So why don’t you toddle back off to work—I’m sure you have vital responsibilities to attend to. Can’t have me interfering with them. Anyway, I have nothing to say to you.”

The last line might’ve made John laugh on some other occasion, but he was both too tired and too ashamed to laugh right now.

“You’re right, okay?” John said, staring at the door as if he could will his words to penetrate not only that barrier but Rodney’s wall of hurt indignation. 

“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. Can you speak up?” 

Rodney must have moved closer to the door because John heard the nasty sneer in those words just fine.

He couldn't even work up any answering snark. He deserved Rodney’s venom; hell, he’d earned it.

John climbed slowly to his feet, feeling heavy in his bones and wishing for a moment he could just rewind, back to before they’d started sleeping together, when things had been easy: He’d tweak one of Rodney’s many entertaining buttons and revel in Rodney’s rant as it washed over him.

Of course, if he could go back in time—and he was careful to clamp down on that thought as soon as he had it, given Atlantis’ penchant for delivering what John wanted—he’d lose the first time they’d kissed, a fumbling, inelegant, completely devastating moment when John had realized how big Rodney’s hands were, how his broad shoulders were good for holding onto, how Rodney’s supple mouth could set him alight with need.

And he’d never have heard the snuffling noises Rodney made when he slept or watched the strange, wonderful light in his eyes when he discovered a new theory in the middle of an old _Star Trek_ episode or shared stupid jokes over purloined candy bars in the back of a puddlejumper (also purloined) on a private beach John had discovered just for them.

The memories washed over him, a flood of feelings—laughter and intensity, sensuality and ridiculousness, a montage of stupid hair and stupider in-jokes, shared looks and shared loss and all the little things that made them _them_.

John found himself just outside the door, willing Atlantis to open it despite Rodney’s overrides.

The one time he most wanted the city to help him, she didn't.

Maybe she knew what a jackass he’d been.

Maybe she knew he needed to do this right.

Maybe it was his last shot.

Hand on the door, forehead against the cool metal, John said, “Please, Rodney. I was a dick, and I know it, and I’m sorry.”

Sensing the presence of people moving in the corridor to either side, John made a decision, knowing he’d regret more what might happen if he didn't choose.

“I love you, Rodney, and I’m sorry I hurt you. You didn’t deserve it. I was afraid, okay? I—”

The door slid open, and only John’s pilot’s reflexes kept him from falling into Rodney, who was standing a foot away, staring at him, his mouth slightly open.

His eyes tracked to one side of John, to where there were doubtless witnesses drinking in every word, every expression on Rodney’s face, the tension in John’s shoulders

Rodney reached out, grabbed a shoulder, tried to haul him into the lab, but John, committed now, set his jaw and his feet and shook his head.

“No,” John said. “Let them hear. I’m not ashamed of you, Rodney, or of us. I love you. I love being with you. I won’t hide that anymore because it’s inconvenient for some people.”

“But your j-job?” Rodney began, voice quavering, eyes wide and a little wet.

John gave him a cocky grin, closed the space between them, breathed the next words into Rodney’s mouth, “They want to court martial me, they can come here and get me.”

Rodney’s mouth was warm and pliant, and he let out a quiet sound when John slid his tongue into his mouth. His hands came up, wrapping around John in an almost bruising grip, and John plastered himself against Rodney, deepening the kiss.

Behind him, John heard a gasp and then someone clearing his throat and then murmurs moving away, carrying word of what they’d seen—Colonel John Sheppard and Doctor Rodney McKay making out like teenagers in front of Atlantis and everybody.

 _Fuck ’em_ , John thought, putting his weight against Rodney to guide them into the room so that the door closed behind them and asking Atlantis to lock it for him without breaking the kiss.

This next part was private and didn't require witnesses.


End file.
